


What's In a Name?

by kayromantic



Category: Drive Me Crazy (1999)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 13:24:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16995825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayromantic/pseuds/kayromantic
Summary: Bo. Judy. Dee. She has been many a person, but who is She really in the end?





	What's In a Name?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LovelyPoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/gifts).



Judy “Dee” (formerly Bo) Vine sat at the small white desk in the corner of the rumor, staring blankly at the flashing cursor on the computer screen.

Username: __________________________

It was a loaded question, Dee thought, choosing a name. She had done it once before, in real life, so why was she struggling to pick one here, online? It was a lot more ephemeral. She could be whoever she wanted.

Except, she thought, she had already become what she had wanted. She was beautiful, popular, well-liked and the envy of what seemed like everyone at Time Zone High. So why did she feel the need to go online and create a whole new identity?

It had been that day, it hadn’t been going well. Eddy had been pushier than usual, and Dee knew he was saying things. Making it seem like they’d gone further than they had, bragging about things that hadn’t happened and in all likeliness would never happen. She was feeling frustrated, and she ended up missing how things used to be.

Oh not everything, but she missed when people thought she was smart or would listen to what she said. And she never had to worry about any real malicious rumors behind her back. When you were chubby and people were used to calling you Bo Vine, they had a tendency to say things to your face. Which was not great, but at least it was there in the open to deal with.

She missed trusting people. Maybe here, in this nebulous world of the internet, while she wouldn’t be able to trust that whoever she spoke to was what they said they were. She could at least trust that they would listen to what she had to say. Maybe re-capture a bit of she was prior to her magnificent transformation

Dee took a long deep breath.

Username: daughterjudy____________

There, she thought. Simple. A whole new second life that she had to navigate. Now where would “daughterjudy” go that Dee Vine would not? She couldn’t really think of anything, not anything that would work anyways, but she ended up at one of the local forums for Time Zone High. It was a large school, and while she was sure she could possibly point out any one in the chat room if she knew their real names, she doubted anyone that mattered would be there. Certainly the likes of Eddy, Sue, Nicole, Alicia would not be caught dead in a chat room like this.

Online chat rooms were for people who didn’t have lives.

There were threads discussing the Centennial and Wake Up, Time Zone! and other inanities of school life. However her interest was piqued when someone had posted a thread of images from the Hubble Telescope, and Dee had always had a penchant for space. In her other life, the one before, she had been an almost absolute geek about it. So she had clicked the username and selected the option to direct message the person and…

Was this okay? Was she betraying Eddy? That was ridiculous, she didn’t know if the person she was messaging was a guy, and even if it was she didn’t mean anything by it. She just wanted to talk about nebulas and stars and space.

No betrayal, no cheating. Just a simple conversation. It wouldn’t lead to anything.

daughterjudy: Hello, those are nice pictures. It’s cool you post things like this.

DIGX1: Thx. Glad someone likes them.

They talk about the pictures for awhile, never saying anything else about who they were, and Dee jotted off a quick good bye when she noticed it was getting late. The conversation had been nice. Easy. And that would be fine for now.

————————————————

Maybe it was due to her own double (triple?) life, but Dee thought it was pretty obvious what Chase and Nicole were doing. Chase having just come off being dumped and Nicole scrambling to salvage her wounded ego, it was an obvious plan. Pretend to date in order to get back the ones you wanted.

It amused her, and Dee liked Chase. While they hadn’t been particularly close before, he had been kind to her back then. Before. And she understood his frustration at their newly share social cliques pettiness. Though it was when Eddy made a comment about Designated Dave that really stopped her in her tracks. The comment about the X-Files website rang familiar to her.

She had been corresponding with user DIGX1 for months now, and he had vaguely discussed being involved on various forums. It wasn’t possible, was it? That the person she had been corresponding with for weeks now could possibly be the class nerd.

She put the suspicions of that to the side. It was enough to maintain her current facade, than worry about the breaking of another one. She was tempted to pull Chase aside for a minute and as but thought better of it. Just because she was pretty sure he was just pretending to fit in, didn’t mean he wouldn’t give her away.

She didn’t want anyone to know, even if they were sympathetic to her situation.

And she felt alone, and a loneliness not even DIGX1 (or designated Dave could possibly fix.)

—————————————————  
The BiCentennial was over, DIGX1 was revealed to be Designated Dave, and daughterjudy turned out to be Dee (formerly Bo) Vine. Eddy was long gone and Dee guessed that Dave and her were a couple now.

And as much as she liked him, she still felt herself keep things close to the chest. She worried that she didn’t live up to his expectations. She wasn’t as kind, or as much of a nerd as he probably thought she was.

But it was a high school relationship, and she was going to enjoy it. And Dave was kind, no pressure, and maybe she could him come out of his shell. She knew eventually he would see her for the fraud that she was.

He talked of romantic fantasies like giving up an elite east coast school to go to UCLA with her. (‘It’s not a bad school,’ he says) but she dissuades him of the idea. As much as she liked him and thought it possibly could go somewhere, it was still too knew.

Besides she still didn’t know who she was yet.

She was no longer The Dee Vine. But she wasn’t daughterjudy completely either.

She talks to Nicole about it while they were on one of the many double dates (and sometimes triple if Ray finds someone to accompany him).

“Do you find it hard now that you’re not pretending?” Dee asked Nicole, trying to make it sound like she was talking about Nicole and Chase’s relationship even though that isn’t what she meant.

“Not really,” Nicole said, “I mean I think it’s easier, now that it’s real.”

Dee nods.

“What about you?” Nicole asked, “have you decided who you’re gonna be?”

“Still trying to figure out,” Dee said, “I think I need a new name. None of the ones I’ve used so far seem to fit.”

“What’s wrong with the real one?” Nicole asked.

Dee smiled back at Nicole.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that just yet.”

————————————————

She stood at the freshman registration table, the cacophony of sounds of incoming students and organizations swirled around her. It was the first day of university and she thought it was time for a brand new start. Dave was off in New Haven, and her other friends were elsewhere. There were no ties. All there was left was for her to decide who she was going to be.

“What’s your name?” the student volunteer said, looking at her expectantly trying to push her through as fast as she could.

She took a deep breathe. This was it.

“Judy,” she said, “Judy Vine.”


End file.
